Classical French dramaturgical code — forbids explicit violence, sexuality, and transgression on stage; enforces suggestion over depiction. Still shapes blocking and framing today.
17th-century French Classicism established a set of rules that permeate not only dramaturgy but also cinematic language to this day: bienséance — the imperative of propriety, of appropriateness. What was not permitted to be shown on stage — violence, sexual acts, death itself — had to be suggested, displaced, moved behind the scenes. The viewer completed the invisible in their mind. This sounds like old theater theory, but it is still relevant when shooting: Bienséance compels economy of representation.
On set, this means specifically: A slap in the face doesn't happen on screen — the blow falls outside the frame, we see the reaction, hear the sound. A rape is not staged but indicated through editing, the camera turning away, and sound. Montage becomes a tool of suggestion. This is not about restraint out of prudishness, but craftsmanship: the viewer actively participates, becomes an accomplice to the imagination. This often creates more intensity than explicit depiction — a mechanism that directors use from psychological thrillers to horror film grammar.
Practically, bienséance manifests in framing decisions: the camera focuses on the face, cuts away from the body. Off-screen space becomes cinematic space. Sound design then carries the burden — screams, breaths, wet sounds. In editing, one works with ellipsis, dissolves, quick cuts: not out of censorship, but out of narrative intelligence. Godard, Haneke, even Marvel blockbusters operate with this grammar — not always consciously, but structurally ingrained.
Today, bienséance is often misunderstood as a mere artistic device: as if omission were weaker than showing. The opposite is true. A cut away from a kick to the face, immediately followed by blood on a wall — that burns itself deeper than any FX close-up. Bienséance is therefore not self-censorship, but formal constraint that leads to better formal design. Anyone who consciously breaks this rule — for example, through direct depiction — must know why: to shock? To mark a style? That is then an informed decision, not lawlessness.